No bull: canned energy: men's fitness takes Red Bull to the lab and discovers the heat behind the hype

Men's Fitness, Sept, 2001 by Brian Rowley

What spinach did for Popeye, Red Bull can do for the active guy. Improve performance, especially during stress or strain. Increase endurance. Improve reaction speed. Stimulate the metabolism. Allegedly.

First concocted in Austria in 1987, Red Bull has been increasingly marketed as an energy drink for the extreme generation. In an effort to get active guys everywhere--from the campus to the gym to the club--to open their wallets each 8.2-ounce can lists a litany of turbopowered benefits for the mind and body. Yet it looks and tastes like any other soda. Can these claims really be justified?

To get a definitive answer, Men's Fitness sent a can of Red Bull to an independent laboratory for analysis; we also dug up some recent scientific studies. While the drink may not be a magic elixir for everybody, we found there is indeed some heat behind the hype.

ENERGY ENHANCER

Can a mere eight ounces of Red Bull--or of anything legal--really get your motor running the way the ads boast? Perhaps. Scientists at the Institute of Sports Medicine at the University of Paderborn in Germany looked at the effects of Red Bull on 13 athletes who performed exhaustive bouts of endurance exercise. The results? The drink strengthened heart contractions and increased stroke volume, which is the amount of blood, oxygen and nutrients the heart can pump to the working muscles, a major determinant of how long you can keep on going and going and going.

You might think the effects would lye due solely to the sugar and caffeine content, as one can of Red Bull has about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee and contains about five teaspoons of sugar. However, one of the two placebo groups in the study was given just as much caffeine as the amount in Red Bull.

The drink with the battling Brahmas logo increased stroke volume by about 21 percent during exercise, while caffeine alone had no effect. For some people, the amount of sugar in each can may lead to a blood-sugar spike and the ensuing crash. Since insulin levels--which cause the crash--remain stable during exercise, you may want to drink Red Bull within a few minutes of a workout.

On the other hand, it takes 30 minutes for the caffeine to kick in, and the subjects in the study ingested the drink 40 minutes before exercise. Since everyone has a different reaction to sugar, experiment to find the timing that's right for you.

The stroke-volume benefit of Red Bull may be due to its content of the amino acid taurine, from which the drink derives its name--think Taurus. In fact, studies of laboratory critters found that extra taurine in the diet can improve heart function. It's difficult to say how much, since taurine is a nonessential amino acid without a specific daily-intake recommendation. However, it's known that exercise depletes taurine, so active guys may benefit from extra amounts. A recent report in the British Journal of Nutrition observed that populations with the highest levels of taurine tend to also have the lowest incidence of heart disease. Found in most forms of animal protein, taurine is known to play a role in vision and digestion; it also keeps your gray matter purring along.

To confirm that Red Bull has enough taurine to do the job, we had the good people at San Rafael Chemical Services in Salt Lake City analyze it. Sure enough, the lab found 983 milligrams of taurine. That's a lot for a mere eight-ounce can, considering taurine's sulfurous taste, but it may be enough to explain the beverage's heart benefits.

BRAIN BOOSTER

Two studies of Red Bull's effect on mental edge were recently published in the European journal Amino Adds. One found that graduate students rated higher on tests for mood and mental sharpness if they drank Red Bull an hour before being tested. The second study found that 11 sleepy drivers given Red Bull reacted faster and did less lane drifting during a driving simulation than those given a glucose-based energy-drink placebo; the effects were particularly strong during the first hour after the subjects drank Red Bull. (This does not mean that Red Bull should be your backup drink for the drive home after a late party or date.)

Both test results suggest that Red Bull is an effective pick-me-up for coordination-intensive events, or for staying alert on too little sleep. However, the benefits clearly mimic the effects of caffeine and may be attributed to the beverage's high caffeine content.

TAKING THE BULL BY THE HORNS

We found that not all of Red Bull's boasts are completely bull-free. For example, one claim--previously printed on each can but now found only on the company Web site--promises to "eliminate waste substances from the body." To pull this off, Red Bull would have to contain ample amounts of glucuronolactone, a substance that binds to waste products in the body and is then excreted. The lab discovered just 56 milligrams of glucuronolactone, a pretty meager amount, which offers no proof that Red Bull will have a "detoxifying" effect on the average man.